Louis Theodore Mori(t)z Eichborn was chief of a banking house in Breslau and a frequent opponent of Adolf Anderssen.

A summary of their encounters is as follows:

In 1851, Eichborn won two games. In 1852, he won eight games and drew one in a match at Breslau. In 1853, Eichborn won nine games and lost one. In 1854, Eichborn won four games. In 1855, Eichborn won two games and lost one. In 1857, he won four games. In 1858, he won one game. In 1859, Eichborn won one game. From 1851 to 1859, Eichborn won 31 games, lost two and drew one. Eichborn died on May 9, 1882 in Breslau. His games were found among his papers after he died. He had kept his wins and some draws. The games were published in "Adolf Anderssen, der Altmeister Schachspielkunst," by Gottschall in 1912. About fifteen other games played by Eichborn with other opponents were published by "Deutsche Schachzeitung" during his lifetime.

kapinov: It is interesting, his record against one of the strongest players of his time. Louis Eichborn was either a forgotten world champion or one of Anderssen's local sparring partners where these game scores were his only wins (with the hundreds upon hundreds of lost game scores somehow "misplaced").

jaime gallegos: Breslaw was at that time a German city on the Eastern Prusia, now called Wroclaw on Polony. It was an important city with good chess players. Anderssen was not invencible and players like Eichborn were not defeated by him. The chess archeologists must find other games or players like him !

chessgames.com: Recently we added some more of Eichborn's games, mostly wins over Andersson. We're still picking through them for errors and duplications.

So who is this Eichborn, who defeated one of the strongest players of that era with a score you would expect from an exhibition against amateurs? Some interesting information and ideas regarding Eichborn can be found here http://snow.prohosting.com/~batgrrl...

<According to the book "Adolf Anderssen" by Hermann von Gottschall the games-scores of the games between Anderssen and Louis Eichborn (who died on May 9 1882, in Breslau) were found in a notebook of the latter. And he naturally only wrote down the wins over his great opponent. That's why (almost) only wins by Eichborn are known!>

ath: I've just come across a note about Louis Eichborn published in Deutsche Schachzeitung v. 48, p. 65-73 (March 1893) with some more information. (This is the first mention of the Eichborn notebook I have found so far.)

The notebook covered the period from October 1850 to July 1861 and contained numerous endgames (he is said to have been strong endgame player) as well as around 500 game scores from his play, occasionally with notes. The opponents were Breslau players: Eliason and Friedländer (approx. 100 games each), then Anderssen, then Sadebeck and Promnitz (each ~40), Mannheimer and von Gottschall (~30), Ditterberner, Bruck, Hillel, Ravenstein, Schück (~12-25), and finally a few games with players such as von der Lasa and Jenay.

I'll try to upload the last two -- the only other non-Anderssen score given is against Dr. Eliason.

ath: <voorlandt> I have only about half-a-dozen games over and above what is available here already, but as they're all against totally unknown players, I rather doubt they merit inclusion here. Lasa is well known, and Jenay at least half-known: that's why I submitted them.

IndigoViolet: <With Anderssen and Steinitz the story is much different. I remember I once lent a brand-new copy of Adolf Anderssen, by Dr Hermann von Gottschall, to him. Some weeks or months later he returned it, and I had good reason to believe he had worked over every game and note in it – all 751 games in the main section, plus 80 problems by Anderssen in another section. And later on Bobby and I played over 36 games that Anderssen played during 1851 to 1859 in Breslau with Louis Eichborn, a banker and good friend of chess. Much to our great glee we found that Anderssen lost them all.>

offramp: One way of getting an idea of his playing strength is for User: Xeroxx to go through his games.
<Xeroxx> is the one who posts stats such as at Staunton vs Cochrane, 1841<Howard Staunton (0)
4 Inaccuracies
0 Mistakes
0 Blunders
25 Average centipawn loss

An Englishman: Good Evening: Pity that Mr. Eichborn didn't preserve all of his games vs. Anderssen. He probably lost hundreds if not thousands of times, but the fact that he won these proves he must have played at a rather high level--high enough that A. A. must have unleashed some brilliancies that have now gone lost.

NOTE: You need to pick a username and password to post a reply.
Getting your account takes less than a minute, totally anonymous,
and 100% free--plus, it
entitles you to features otherwise unavailable.
Pick your username now and join the chessgames community!
If you already have an account, you should
login now.

Please observe our posting guidelines:

No obscene, racist, sexist, or profane language.

No spamming, advertising, or duplicating posts.

No personal attacks against other members.

Nothing in violation of United States law.

No posting personal information of members.

See something that violates our rules? Blow the whistle and inform an administrator.

NOTE: Keep all discussion on the topic of this page.
This forum is for this specific player and nothing else. If you want to discuss chess in general, or
this site, you might try the Kibitzer's Café.

Messages
posted by Chessgames members do not necessarily represent the views of Chessgames.com, its employees, or sponsors.